Cougar Reservoir

I went camping with some friends this weekend up at Cougar Reservoir -- All of this is at the bare patch just below the bridge >here<.

On Saturday we checked out the talus slope. We didn't find too much -- a couple lizards and some millipedes.



Those millipedes actually moved pretty quick.

Here's a couple habitat shots:



And one of me!


We came back that night with the blacklight -- everyone else was checking out the hill with regular flashlights, but Lori and I were flipping rocks at the bottom. And what did we find?

The first scorpion I've ever successfully found blacklighting! This one (which I believe to be a 2I U. mordax was hiding out under a rock and played dead when I tried to catch it. (All scorpion pics were taken on Sunday, by the way.)

We figured the best spot to find them was under rocks laying on soil at the base of the slope. A few minutes later we spotted a bigger one just sitting between two rocks with an ant on its head.



We came back on Sunday morning. Here's the best shots I have of the actual slope -- that's me in the brown shirt.



After figuring out the best spots the night before, I found myself very excited after about two minutes of flipping rocks:


What's that on my thumb, you ask?


That was the one that got away -- the ventilation holes in the container were larger than I thought.

I'm guessing that higher-elevation populations of U. mordax tend to have babies earlier in the year -- I have a WC female from lower down that seems very gravid at the moment, but I found two 2I up here.

I took most of the photos, but those that start with DSCN in the file name were taken by Lori. The couple that start with S were taken by another friend on the trip.

their seasons may vary per region but I'm saying that they are U. mordax

The first one looks like a paractonus sp. Similar to Calis' P. silvestrii (I spelled that wrong by the way)

I managed to eliminate everything but P. boreus and U. mordax, and I'm leaning towards the latter.

IHeartMantids wrote:

I managed to eliminate everything but P. boreus and U. mordax, and I'm leaning towards the latter.

there's only 4 species up there for you to choose from

I checked Kari's site and it said there's six in Oregon . . . unless you were just counting that region.

region

Nice finds dude!

Catch some E. flavicus (or whatever those are) and pretend it's mordax -- the genera look enough alike.

The little one I caught actually stung its prey when I fed everyone last night.

a blacklight and common sense....scientists just set traps like pit traps and stuff
if you get any can i buy 1?

Of course, but I have to do a hunt first haha and get a black light and the time to go to the new forest hehehe

But if I manage to catch any I will for sure post about it on here

xxx

Flip rocks and carry a blacklight. When you find one or two, you can figure out the microhabitat that they like and then catch more.

The first one I found blacklighting showed me the microhabitat to look for, and that's how I caught the one during the day. The big one was just being dumb hanging out between a couple rocks where I could plainly see it.

So what did you do with the animals once you caught them? I'm curious.

I kept two of the three scorpions. (The third tiny one you see on my thumb escaped through a ventilation hole.)

I was going to keep the skink, but it wound up going to the guy who caught the fence lizard (he'd wanted a lizard anyway). I think he kept both.

The millipedes went to the BugZoo student club that funded the trip, to add to their "native arthropods" collection.

I hope to eventually capture a few more U. mordax (not a whole lot) because after all this I still have only females.

mice, man! those millies are pretty cool. so's the skink i think.

*Connie* wrote:

Ive heard Euscorpius flavicaudis is in the new forest!!! spreading!
I shall go on a hunt and try to collect a good few but...if the "experts" cant catch one then what hope do I have?

xxxx

Experts smetzperts! Collecting is about thinking like a scorpion. And working hard. The "experts" have nothing on you in those areas, so go show them up!

My friend Paige (with me in pic here) shows me up collecting sometimes. (often! )
https://s619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/Nomadinexile/Nomadinexile/?action=view&current=IMG_0598.jpg

I managed to eliminate everything but P. boreus and U. mordax, and I'm leaning towards the latter.

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